Monarchs playoff schedule, regular season stats

The Manchester Monarchs finished the AHL regular season with a league-best 50-17-6-3 record and will welcome the eighth-seeded Portland Pirates (Arizona Coyotes) to the Verizon Wireless Center on Thursday to open the first round of the Calder Cup Playoffs. Thankfully, Portland and Manchester are a mere 95 miles from each other, and there is no Virginia International Tattoo Hullabaloo this season, so the Monarchs can rest assured, knowing that they’ll have home-ice advantage in the best-of-five series, unlike the circumstances surrounding last season’s first round loss to the Norfolk Admirals. Manchester won the season series with Portland in 2014-15, going 9-2-0-1 in 12 games.

For the semifinals and conference finals, division winners will receive the top seeds and be granted home ice advantage, while remaining teams will be seeded in order of regular season points. In the Calder Cup Finals, the team with the higher amount of regular season points will receive home ice advantage. Because Manchester led the AHL with 109 points, they have home ice advantage throughout the Calder Cup Playoffs.

Barring any scheduling quirks next season, this will be the final Eastern Time Zone-based implementation of the Los Angeles – Arizona rivalry at the AHL level. The Kings are moving their top prospects to Ontario, CA next season, while the Coyotes are moving their affiliate to Springfield, MA as the Florida Panthers turn to Portland, ME as their AHL affiliate. Arizona recently signed a 2014 second round draft pick in center Christian Dvorak and assigned four players to Portland: goaltender Louis Domingue, forwards Henrik Samuelsson and Jordan Szwarz, and defenseman Klas Dahlbeck.

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